Rabindranath Maharaj was named the recipient of the 2011 Toronto Book Award for his novel The Amazing Absorbing Boy tonight at a reception at Toronto Reference Library’s Appel Salon.

“I want to congratulate Rabindranath Maharaj for his wonderful novel The Amazing Absorbing Boy," said Councillor Gary Crawford, representing Mayor Rob Ford and Toronto City Council. "His book gives a unique perspective about our diverse city, and was selected from 78 book submissions. All of these authors tell great stories about Toronto and can be very proud of their work.”

Toronto Public Library’s City Librarian Jane Pyper commented, "In this clear-eyed look at Toronto as it appears to a young Trinidadian immigrant, Rabindranath Maharaj has given all of us a new way of seeing our city. I congratulate him on this fine novel."

The 2011 Toronto Book Awards Committee, made up of members Michael Booth, Tina Edan, Angela Rebeiro, Kristine Thornley and Karen Tisch, volunteered their time to read all of the books and select the shortlist and winner. They commented on how Maharaj creates a complex, witty and hopeful portrait of an imaginative youth determined to forge his own path in multi-cultural Toronto.

Rabindranath Maharaj is the author of five novels and three short story collections. His books have been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Rogers Fiction Prize, the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Bocas Literature Award. His most recent novel also won the 2011 Trillium English Language Fiction Prize. Maharaj's The Amazing Absorbing Boy (Knopf Canada) was chosen from a list of finalists that included James FitzGerald for What Disturbs Our Blood (Random House Canada); James King for Étienne's Alphabet (Cormorant Books Inc.); Nicholas Ruddock for The Parabolist (Doubleday Canada); and Alissa York for Fauna (Random House Canada).

This year marks the 37th anniversary of the Toronto Book Awards. Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, the Toronto Book Awards honour authors of books of literary or artistic merit that are evocative of Toronto. The annual awards offer $15,000 in prize money. Each finalist receives $1,000, and the winning author receives $11,000. For more information about the awards and what the jury members said about all of the books, visit www.toronto.ca/book_awards.

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